


the last light on the water

by disheveledcurls



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Fix-it fic, Missing Scene, Multi, Past Finn Collins/Raven Reyes, memorven, queer and polyamorous M/F/F, raven reyes deserves Love, s7 au, s7 spec
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:06:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24655051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disheveledcurls/pseuds/disheveledcurls
Summary: The most infuriating part is having to admit Murphy’s been right all along.(a quick little Memorven s7 AU)
Relationships: Emori/John Murphy (The 100), Emori/John Murphy/Raven Reyes, John Murphy/Raven Reyes
Comments: 4
Kudos: 45





	the last light on the water

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place immediately after 7.03, except for the flashback, which is set during the s4-s5 hiatus.  
> Trigger warnings: some light smut, plus mentions of the minor character deaths and the physical assault scene seen in the episode.

> _These were the reflections of my hours of despondency and solitude. (...) Could they turn from their door one, however monstrous, who solicited their compassion and friendship?_

mary shelley, **frankenstein, or the modern prometheus**

It always came down to a choice: us or them, die now or postpone, be loved or be strong. The problem lay not so much in knowing how to make that call, but in being able to justify it to yourself, after—in finding some way to wash the blood off your hands. Much as she liked to protest her self-righteousness, the truth was that Raven had found herself in this position many times before, and everyone knew this as well as she did. It was why she couldn’t face the others after they found out what happened with the reactor, why she had intended to leave the castle as soon as Jackson was done checking on her injuries. But although she immediately stormed off alone, ignoring words of concern for her injuries and especially Clarke’s sympathetic, knowing looks, she soon found that her leg hurt too much to take the walk to Simone’s house.

Furious, she retraced her steps and snuck back into the castle, searching for a room where she could hide and lick her wounds in peace. Of their own accord, her feet led her to Murphy and Emori’s quarters, as if replaying the day’s events from the beginning. Except this time the room was empty, engulfed in a peaceful blue darkness touched only by starlight. Raven stood still in the center of the room, staring longingly at the vacant bed. She was making a mental list of all the reasons why she didn’t deserve to just lie down and give herself a break when a familiar voice softly called her name and she startled. Turning around, Raven saw that Murphy and Emori had come into the room and closed the door. If they had been following her all along, she hadn’t noticed, too busy trying to avoid everyone and torturing herself with thoughts of the dead miners, of the way survival always seemed to come with a deadly price.

“Oh, sorry, I was just looking for somewhere to crash,” Raven explained quickly, averting her eyes from the combined intensity of her friends’ inquisitive gazes. “I’ll get out of your way.” She took a few halting steps towards the door, dragging her aching leg along.

Emori stood in her way. “Raven, just stay with us,” she said, firmly but not forcefully. “You’re in pain. You shouldn’t be alone right now.”

Emori reached out to clasp Raven’s shoulders, but Raven shrugged her off and took a step back, shaking her head. The sobs she had been holding back now threatened to come back. “You’re wrong. I should,” she retorted, with a knot in her throat. “Four people are dead because of me.”

“You’re forgetting the rest of us are alive because of you,” Murphy pointed out, with a hint of exasperation. “No one else would’ve known how to fix that damn reactor.”

Once again Emori advanced, and once again Raven backed away, until she was standing against the wall, shaking. “That doesn’t make it right,” she objected, feeling tears roll down her cheeks. “God, I miss Monty. He wouldn’t have let me do this.”

“Monty would have done the same as you,” Murphy countered, his brow creasing with irritation. “Plus, you didn’t know the radiation would be that bad down there.”

“Well, I _should_ have known,” Raven argued pointlessly, her breath becoming quicker and shallower as her temper flared. “And I should’ve fixed it by myself instead of risking—”

“Will you two be quiet?” Emori had raised her voice only a fraction, but it silenced them both at once. Without hesitation, Emori walked over to Raven and enfolded her in her arms. At first, Raven bristled and resisted, barely suppressing the urge to scream her anger to the winds, but Emori did not budge.

“Don’t be nice to me,” Raven said brokenly. “I don’t deserve it.”

Emori pulled back just enough to cup Raven’s face in her hands. “It’s not about deserve,” she said decisively, looking Raven in the eye. “It’s about what we want to give you.”

Raven couldn’t help but roll her eyes in disbelief. “And what’s that?”

Emori’s answer was simple and immediate: “Ourselves.”

Raven hid her face in her hands, grateful and hesitant. She wished she could undo death, or that she had nightblood so she could have risked her own life instead of the lives of others—but most of all she wished that she was strong enough to not need her friends, to rage and shout and push them away so far that she could never endanger them again. None of these things were possible. “That’s not fair,” she insisted. “It’s my fault those people are dead.”

“Maybe it is,” Emori said slowly, raising a hand to pacify her boyfriend, who was already opening his mouth to contradict her. “Let it hurt, Raven. Let us be here for you.”

If this was what it felt like to be Clarke for a day, Raven couldn’t stand it. She certainly wasn’t strong enough to pull it off alone. Hating herself for it, Raven finally stopped fighting and sank into Emori’s embrace as Murphy joined them, encircling them both in his long, skinny arms. When the tears subsided, Emori moved to hug Raven from behind and locked her arms around Raven’s waist. Raven leaned back and allowed Emori to support her weight while Murphy crouched to remove her brace. Together, Murphy and Emori helped Raven out of her clothes and eased her into bed.

“That’s it, Reyes, just lie down and stop thinking for a little while,” Murphy instructed, oddly sweet. “Remember, self-loathing is my domain, not yours.”

Raven couldn’t resist the urge to stick her tongue out at him. “Not making any promises.”

“Do you want us to sleep somewhere else?” Emori asked softly.

Raven couldn’t imagine getting any sleep tonight, least of all alone. She shook her head, propped herself up on her elbows and wordlessly patted the mattress beside her. Needing no further encouragement, Murphy and Emori quickly undressed and joined her under the covers, one on either side. This set-up was, at once, new and familiar—it was by no means the first time they had shared a bed, but they had not been together like this since the Ring. Raven supposed there had been several reasons, good ones, to justify the distance that had grown between them in the meantime, the way she had drifted away from the two people she needed the most. For starters, Murphy and Emori had broken up, and then there was the world to save, again, and Shaw had come along, and——

“Raven, I can _feel_ you thinking,” Emori scolded her, in a whisper, as she ran her hand down Raven’s bad leg in soothing, repetitive strokes. Murphy reached out to ease Raven’s hair out of her signature ponytail, moving more delicately than she had thought possible.

“Can’t sleep like that,” he mumbled, by way of explanation, as he removed her hair tie, hooked it around his wrist and started to comb Raven’s hair back with slow, steady hands, an action so comforting that it made her sigh with relief.

“You’re both so good to me,” Raven said under her breath, as she lay down on her back and her friends snuggled closer. “I want to be good to you, too.” She rolled onto her side and reached out to tug at the hem of Emori’s shirt, but the other woman gently stopped her.

“How about you take it easy tonight?” Emori said, her voice drowsy and kind. “You’re hurt. You should be resting.”

Raven considered arguing, but Emori was right—she wasn’t exactly at her best tonight. Nikki’s beating had taken its toll, and Raven’s entire body ached with fatigue and wanted one thing only, which was sleep. “Okay,” she acquiesced at last, her mouth set in a stubborn line, “but first can we make out a little?”

Murphy snorted a laugh and flopped onto his back. Emori smirked wickedly and leaned in. “Aye, aye, captain.”

***

**five years after praimfaya**

The most infuriating part is having to admit Murphy’s been right all along. Raven hasn’t slept properly in weeks, baffled by the urgency and intensity of her feelings. Her first instinctive reaction was a rebellious, pig-headed denial. In her experience, love—or lust or chemistry, whatever one chose to call it—was at worst a weakness and at best a distraction she could not afford. And, as usual, there were several pressing issues which required her undivided attention: the fuel shortage, the impossibility of communicating with the bunker, the radiation levels on the Ground, the passage of time… Raven knew that she was needed. Therefore, studiously ignoring what she felt, she continued to get up every day and do everything that was expected of her: tinkering with malfunctioning devices in the workshop, running numbers and simulations, monitoring the tech that keeps them all alive, figuring out solutions to impossible problems, and so on. She could’ve gone on like this forever if Murphy hadn’t confronted her yesterday, demanding that she face reality and make a decision, after summarizing his and Emori’s feelings on the matter with an earnestness that Raven found terrifying.

She lost her temper at that and told him, with an abundance of expletives, that he knew nothing of her feelings. In no uncertain terms, she demanded to be left alone and when he did, she locked herself in the workshop, sat on the cold floor hugging her knees to her chest and cried, quietly, for a long time, so full of longing and regret that she thought she was going to be sick. When she was done crying, she was finally ready to accept what it is that she wanted. Whether her want was possible in reality remained to be seen, but Murphy had said she should talk to them and they would figure it out, together. _You don’t have to do this alone_.

That is why Raven is here, standing in the middle of a room illuminated only by starlight, agitated, flustered and unsure where to even begin. Words have never been her strong suit, so maybe she should simply state the facts. That she is in love with the man and the woman that stand before her. That she cannot, _will_ not, choose between them. That somehow, over their years here, the very nature of their relationship has changed in a fundamental way. Even the way they look at each other is different now, loaded and tense, and there is no going back to simpler times. This they have learned the hard way, many times over, since the day they were sent to the Ground. The past is gone, and there is only going forward, no matter how tough the going gets. Hence the necessity of choice.

“I thought we agreed she needed more time,” Emori stage-whispers to her boyfriend, wryly, as they watch Raven pace the room with her work-face on, not saying anything.

Murphy rolls his eyes. “We’ve waited long enough. Raven, will you just talk to us?”

Raven stops in her tracks, but she cannot bring herself to look at them, let alone speak plainly about what it is that brought her here. How can she get what she wants without hurting anyone, without driving a wedge between two people that love each other? And how could she choose between two people that she loves equally? She has been racking her brain for days. If there’s an obvious, painless answer somewhere, she cannot see it.

_Remember, no problem’s unsolvable,_ Sinclair would say, at times like these. _If you can’t find the answers, you’re probably asking yourself the wrong questions_.

Raven truly doesn’t know how to reason her way out of this one. Maybe coming here was a mistake. “I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking,” she says, taking a step back and rubbing an anxious hand down her neck. She can’t remember the last time she felt this nervous. “I—I know what I feel, alright? I just can’t say it.”

Her friends exchange a look. “Then show us,” Emori demands calmly, her eyes alight with curiosity and determination.

Raven hesitates, and she can’t help but look to Murphy as if asking for permission. Regardless of her feelings for Emori, it would hurt Raven to hurt him. But as he nods in wordless encouragement, Raven steps forward, shakily leans in with her eyes closed and hopes to god Emori will do the rest. As usual, Emori doesn’t disappoint. Her kiss is impatient, passionate and rough, and when she pulls away, Raven instinctively turns to Murphy and he kisses her too, delicate, thoughtful and slow.

“Um—wow,” is all she can say, after, and her uncharacteristic lack of a witty comeback makes Murphy and Emori laugh. Raven hasn’t felt this lightheaded since her days as a zero-g mechanic. The thought of it is enough to briefly invoke Finn’s ghost and the memory of another love triangle she created accidentally when she crashed down to Earth in search of her boyfriend. “Oh god,” she says, covering her mouth as the realization hits, “we shouldn’t. It’s so selfish. I’m getting in the way. You two belong together, and—”

“And you belong with us,” Emori interrupts decisively. She takes one of Murphy’s hands and lifts it to her lips to give it a quick kiss. “Isn’t that true, John?”

Murphy nods, his expression strikingly open, and reaches out to cup Raven’s face with his free hand. “What do you say, spacewalker? Do we give this a shot?”

Raven goes stiff, bracing herself for the wave of grief that her old nickname is sure to prompt, but to her great surprise she discovers that the grief doesn’t come, that it doesn’t hurt to take a breath and then another and another, as she stands in this cold, starlit room, held by two people who love her. Raven looks from Murphy to Emori over and over again as her mouth stretches slowly into a bright grin. She has been asking herself the wrong questions all along.

“Sure,” Raven says at last, throwing her hands up in the air. “Why the hell not.”

***

Time passed very slowly, or seemed to, in the blue dark, in between kisses; Raven was aware that they had taken off most of their clothes; that they were about to have sex for the first time since the Ring, and in the Primes’ former quarters, of all places; that she had ruthlessly sent four people to their deaths earlier that day. These were the facts, and although her mind was currently dulled and distracted, it still sought to register and process them all, to map and compile all relevant information, from the smell of charred flesh in the reactor’s containment chambers to the minute complexities of radioactivity and nuclear reactions to the feeling of Emori’s fingers inside her, Emori’s breath at her throat, Murphy’s mouth on hers and on her breasts, and although the sex was better than anything Raven had experienced in a long time, she still couldn’t quite turn her brain off like she was supposed to. After a few moments of whimpering and panting and swearing under her breath, Raven came quietly, more overwhelmed by exhaustion than by her orgasm itself. Her limbs were heavy, her breathing was slowing down, and she was filled with a rush of affection for the two people beside her.

She knew she owed them an apology for her actions earlier that day, but when she opened her mouth to speak, Murphy gently pressed a finger to her lips. “You’ll wake her,” he whispered, nodding to Emori, who had already dozed off. “Go to sleep already, Reyes.”

“You first.”

“Real mature.” Murphy smirked around a big yawn.

Raven grabbed one of his hands and pulled him closer so she could rest her head on his chest. “I was going to say sorry for today,” she murmured. “I’ll do it in the morning.”

“Alright.”

“Also, I love you both.”

Nothing happened for several moments. Raven figured Murphy hadn’t heard her and felt half silly, half relieved. But then he held her tighter and pressed a tired kiss to her forehead. “Love you more,” he muttered, and fell asleep.

Nestled between her loves, Raven soon followed, lulled by the tide of their breathing.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. So, even I didn't know I had this in me. I’ve never written anything for Raven, Murphy or Emori before but they’re my favorite group of characters after Bellamy and Clarke, and Memorven (or whatever the ship name is supposed to be) is quickly becoming my second favorite dynamic in the show after Bellarke. I’ve been headcanoning them as an on-and-off thruple since s5 and 7.03 finally gave me an excuse to explore their relationship and write these scenes. Hope you enjoyed them!
> 
> 2\. This fic is unbeta’d, and English is not my native language. Apologies if anything is OOC, inaccurate, or just sounds "off".
> 
> 3\. On a personal note, regardless of what we may think of Raven’s choices in this particular episode, I think she deserves to have more fic and meta written abt her as the showrunners have criminally underused her for years, refusing to give her any other storyline beyond suffering needlessly, losing people she loves, and being the smart one in the group. I’m cautiously optimistic abt her development in this final season and I believe ep3 was a step in the right direction, forcing Raven to face the consequences of the sorts of hard choices she has, oftentimes, enabled or benefited from, and then blamed others for, as well as furthering the Memorven relationship, which I find fascinating. All this to say that any comments about my take on the characters, and/or where we think the dynamic goes from here, are absolutely welcome.
> 
> 4\. Title taken from the last line of Adrienne Greer’s poem “Constantly”.
> 
> 5\. On an even more personal note, queer, polyamorous Raven Reyes, John Murphy and Emori Kom Skaikru should be canon and would be if the writers weren't cowards. Happy fucking pride. :) 
> 
> 6\. I originally posted this as part of my Bellarke-centric collection "life on earth" but thought I'd post it separately as well in case anyone wanted to read it as a standalone.


End file.
